Teacher Professional Development

The Education Department offers interdisciplinary professional development for teachers that makes use of the Museum’s vast and varied collections that will help to bring history alive for students.

We can customize a training opportunity for your group at the Museum or your location! Just contact education@jfk.org to discuss how we can help.

There are often special events, exhibits or special partnerships that occur during the school year for which we hold teacher workshops. Stay tuned to this page for announcements about those or sign up to receive the Educator Newsletter, and we’ll send you the information.

Upcoming Professional Development Program

Presidential Leadership at Historic Crossroads Virtual Teacher Institute 

In partnership with The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 

July 15-18, 2024 | 5:00-7:00 p.m. CST | $25.00, registration closes Thursday, July 11 

Starting with its inception in the eighteenth century, the American presidency has faced numerous inflection points that have reshaped the office. From its constitutional roots to Washington’s precedents, Jacksonian democracy, Lincoln’s Civil War power assertions, TR’s and Woodrow Wilson’s creation of the “rhetorical presidency,” FDR’s Great Depression and World War II presidency, the Cold War’s impact, Nixon and Watergate, the Global War on Terror, and Trump’s unprecedented tenure, the chief executive’s influence has waxed and waned depending on circumstances and presidential leadership. Using classic and new scholarship as well as primary sources, this seminar will examine the challenges and responses of presidents when they have faced and sometimes constructed historic crossroads. 

This program will be led by Dr. Barabara A. Perry, the Gerald L. Baliles Professor in Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Muller Center.